Oh Goody, Now Science Is Telling Us When We Should Be Trying To Get Pregnant

Christ, we're barely out of nappies these days when scientists are telling us we ought to be thinking about settling down and starting a family.

And as if social pressure to hurry on up and start pro-creating wasn't at an almighty high already, a bunch of Dutch scientists are now trying to give us an official sell-by date. Oh goody.

Based on how many children you think you might want (that's another decision we should probably all have made before we've even started full-time jobs, apparently) these wise guys are advising us on when we should cut the contraception and get those babies a-cookin'.

And unsurprisingly, it's alarmingly early. I.e., if you want three children and a 90% chance of conceiving them, you should've been going bareback since you were 23. Reassuring.

Hilariously entitled 'Magic Number', here's their guidance in full.

Ok, ok. It's only the conclusions they've made based on the scientific studies they carried out, and nature does mean that our ovaries do actually have an expiry date. We get that much. But we're just saying, it's not all that helpful for women who are already burdened with a societally-induced urge to pair up and settle down, to add a ticking time bomb to the minefield it already is.